Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 3.
Yellowjackets’ third season kicked off with two episodes, giving us double the twists and leaving us on the edge of our seats in anticipation of the next episode. Not only is Mari’s (Alexa Barajas) safety left up for serious debate while she’s being held captive by Coach Scott (Steven Krueger), but teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) and Melissa (Jenna Burgess) share a surprise kiss, while adult Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) is dealing with a stalker (who is heavily implied to be an adult Melissa). And that’s just scratching the surface! Episode 3, “Them’s the Brakes” (which ends up being a hilarious choice for the episode name), digs into the aftermath of the first two episodes and finally gets the ball rolling on the actual storyline of Season 3.
The Wilderness Hears Tai and Van in ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3 Episode 3

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Last week, Taissa (Tawny Cypress) and Van (Lauren Ambrose) went out for dinner at a fancy restaurant and decided to dine and dash. After being chased by their waiter through the streets, they finally managed to escape him, celebrating their victory with a steamy makeout session in a nearby alley. Said victory wasn’t such a victory after all, because the waiter actually suffered a heart attack and died, something that Taissa discovered in Episode 2. This week, Van is called to the doctor’s office to discuss her blood work. In a shocking turn of events, her cancer has stopped metastasizing. They don’t want to get her hopes up since she’s stage 4, and the odds are rare, but there have been cases of complete remission.
Van goes home to Tai and tells her the good news, and both are thrilled, but then Tai has to drop the waiter bomb on Van. Suddenly, a crushing realization sinks in. Was the waiter a sacrifice to the wilderness in exchange for Van’s improving health? Tai says it’s been a long time, but it could be happening again — first Natalie (Juliette Lewis), now the waiter. She asks Van to just give in to the possibility and lights a candle using the matches she took from the restaurant, beginning a repeated chant of “We hear the wilderness, and it hears us” as Van looks on in horror.
Later in the episode, the two lovebirds are watching television together and basking in the glow of more time, with Tai sweetly saying, “I can’t believe I get to have more of you.” Because this is Yellowjackets, a sweet moment can never last, and their canoodling is interrupted by an old ice cream commercial. It starts out innocently enough — until the Man With No Eyes we’ve been seeing since Season 1 shows up. Tai panics, but realizes she must have seen the ad when she was little, and it has stuck with her ever since. A quick Google search of the ice cream parlor featured in the commercial confirms that it’s since closed down, but Tai decides it has to mean something, and they have to check it out in person, much to Van’s confusion. The place is extremely rundown and scary-looking, but Tai manages to get a door open with a crowbar. They wander around the building and surprisingly encounter nothing out of the ordinary — that is, until they hear a noise reminiscent of the one they used to hear in the wilderness, and see a coyote with a rabbit in its mouth looking in through the window at them. Tai asks, “What do you want?” To which Van replies, “We know what It wants. It wants more.”
It’s Shauna vs. Lottie in ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3 Episode 3

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One thing Shauna has been very adamant about is keeping her past hidden from Callie (Sarah Desjardins). Now that Callie has been witness to the events of the Season 2 finale, however, her curiosity has been piqued, and it’s increasingly hard for Shauna to keep things from her. This is made even more difficult by the fact that Lottie (Simone Kessell) has shown up on her doorstep looking for a place to stay, and Callie is fascinated by her. Lottie has never been one to have a filter when it comes to the wilderness and what it wants, and Shauna knows this, so she wants to keep her away from Callie by any means necessary. She grills Callie about what she and Lottie talked about the night before, when Misty (Christina Ricci) was supposed to be watching them, but Lottie interrupts before Callie can answer. Shauna tries to get through to Lottie, but she’s supposedly booked for the day. Who is she hanging out with? Callie, of course, who sneakily meets Lottie at the mall, where the older woman asks her some probing questions and gives her a few tips on how to shoplift expensive designer clothing without getting caught. No wonder Shauna doesn’t want them hanging out.
While Callie and Lottie are spending the day together, Shauna meets with Misty, who explains what happened the night before and how Callie tricked her and Lottie into playing Truth or Dare. She then offers to help Shauna with her errands, which ends up being an eye-opening experience. As they’re driving, Shauna realizes her brakes have stopped working, and they have to drive through traffic and into a field, where they almost take out a playground of children. In the heat of the moment, Shauna accuses Misty of tampering with her brakes and leaving that phone in the bathroom stall – which Misty, naturally, knows nothing about. Finally, it dawns on Misty that Walter (Elijah Wood) was right about her fellow survivors taking her for granted, and she tells Shauna that she is “the worst friend, not the best,” before storming off.
But Shauna’s awful day is far from over, because when she comes home she finds Lottie and Callie making dinner in the kitchen. At first, it seems harmless, but then she catches sight of the necklace Callie is wearing and the look on Shauna’s face turns to one of devastation: It’s Jackie’s (Ella Purnell) heart necklace. Lottie claims she gave it to Callie because it “feels right” for her to have it, but Shauna rips the necklace off Callie and screams at Lottie to get out of her house. Callie leaves the kitchen shortly after, and Shauna swipes the counter clean in a fit of rage.

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Mari Is at Coach Ben’s Mercy in ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3

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Episode 3 begins with Mari and Coach Ben in his cave hideout. She’s rightfully horrified after hearing him talking to himself, and is worried that it’s just a matter of time before he kills her. As he comes into the frame, we see he has bear spray in his pocket, which he found in the chest of survival supplies from the pit. He doesn’t actually seem to have any ill intent towards Mari, though, and instead gives her some food. It’s bat, so it’s not the finest cuisine, but Mari acts as if it is. She also tries to convince Coach that she’s had a crush on him, claiming that everyone on the team did. He counters this by reminding her of all the times she spread nasty rumors about him, including one where she told everyone he had “raging gonorrhea.”
Mari is undeterred and continues trying to put the moves on Coach Ben in an effort to protect herself until he finally grows frustrated and tells her that he’s gay. He also makes a point of telling her that even if he was straight, he would rather stab himself in the eye than touch her. Frustrated, he stands and goes to walk away, and this is when Mari notices the bear spray. She gets him to come back and snatches the canister, and though he tries to disarm her, she sprays him while screaming her head off, and he returns the favor, spraying her back until they’re both writhing in pain and blinded by the mace. Now effectively not a threat to one another, Coach and Mari can talk honestly for a bit, and we get a peek into their innermost thoughts.
Coach tells Mari that he can’t even fathom how he’s gotten to this point. He lists all the mundane things he’s done in his life, including how he only started substituting because he needed a way to pay off his student loans. He’s just a normal guy, how can all of this be happening? Just as he poses the question, the growling and screaming we’ve been hearing in the previous two episodes starts up again, and he asks Mari if she can hear it too. She seems more unphased by it, but Coach looks deeply disturbed. In response to Coach’s question about whether any of what’s happening to them is real, Mari tells him her own story. She says that she believes there are two versions of reality, and that most of the time the bad one is hiding or waiting, but it’s all real.
The Hunt for Coach Is On in ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3

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Mari informs Coach Ben that none of the girls are looking for him because they all believe he’s dead, so if he lets her go, she’ll just say she fell, hurt her knee, and got lost in the woods. After all, he doesn’t seem to have a plan. How long is he going to keep her in the cave? This gets through to him and he tells her to stand and pulls out a knife. She initially thinks he’s going to kill her, but he just cuts her restraints and tells her she’s free to go. Still, Mari makes sure to shove him down and toss his crutch out of reach before she flees, giving her an ample headstart just in case he changes his mind. After making it back to camp, she’s immediately quizzed by the girls, but she sticks to her story, claiming she fell into a big hole and messed up her knee. She leaves any mention of Coach out of her story until Shauna calls her out by asking how she got out of the hole with an injured knee. Finally, Mari relents and says that Coach found her and helped her, adding that he tied her up and held her hostage in a cave.
The girls are flabbergasted by this reveal, as they’ve believed Coach was dead the entire time, but Shauna only asks Mari if she can find her way back, and the majority of the team supports her decision. They all head out into the woods with makeshift torches made from cans, as Mari leads them to Coach Scott’s cave. They pause outside the entrance, and Nat (Sophie Thatcher) says they don’t have to go in, but Akilah (Nia Sondaya) insists otherwise. Inside, they find that the entrance to the main part of the cave has been blocked off with rocks. Undeterred, they split up to find another way in. Shauna, Van (Liv Hewson), and Akilah team up for this portion of the journey — and this is where things get twisty.
The Yellowjackets Hallucinate a Major Character in Season 3

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The path that Shauna, Van, and Akilah take is filled with water, and as they traverse through it, Shauna’s light goes out, leaving only Van’s torch to guide them. They eventually come out the other side to a new part of the cave, and Van’s flame starts doing some funky things. Something’s not right, which is proven when she turns and sees that both Shauna and Akilah are missing and she’s now all alone, except for a mysterious door in the middle of the cave. When Van opens it and steps through, she’s back in the old cabin in its prime. She sits down in the recliner and warms herself in front of the fire, but things take a turn for the worse as the rug catches a spark and the cabin begins to burn. The chair turns into a plane seat, calling back to Season 1 — when Van was trapped inside the plane and almost left to burn.
We flip to Akilah, who is having a hallucination of her own, though hers is far more peaceful and serene. She’s in the forest, with lots of juicy berries for her to pick and animals to hang out with. Behind her, she hears someone say, “Careful they bite,” and turns to discover she’s being addressed by a talking alpaca (Vincent Pastore). The alpaca speaks again, adding, “It can be easy, or it can be hard, but either way, it’s going to get what it wants.” Then vines wrap around Akilah’s feet and start dragging her into the ground. As for Shauna’s hallucination, she’s floating in the lake when she hears a little boy calling her from the shore. She attempts to swim towards him, but as hard as she tries, she doesn’t get any closer until she’s ultimately dragged underwater.
Eventually, all three of the girls end up in the same hallucination, back in a high school classroom. Lottie (Courtney Eaton) is their teacher; on the blackboard, a quote reads, “Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.” The Man With No Eyes is walking ominously in the hall, but the most jarring appearance of all is Jackie, sitting in front of them, repeatedly tapping a slap bracelet against her wrist. She offers it to the girls, and Akilah tries it first, succeeding on the first try. Van cuts herself in the attempt, and then Jackie slaps the bracelet around Shauna’s neck, which tightens, slowly suffocating her. Lottie tells Akilah to help Shauna, or they’ll all die — which could be a reference to Lottie trying to make Akilah the wilderness’s new prospect.
Lottie doesn’t have to worry, though, because Shauna wakes up, and they’re all back in the cave. Coach Ben is calling for help while dragging Van’s unconscious body with him, and tells the girls that the part of the cave they were in holds some kind of poison gas (most likely methane). They all take a moment to catch their breath, but the moment doesn’t last long because Nat catches up to them and holds Coach at gunpoint before he can move a single muscle. The episode leaves off there, hinting at the strong possibility that Coach may be on the menu for the Yellowjackets next week — which, as he revealed to Mari, has been his biggest fear ever since they killed and ate Javi (Luciano Leroux).
New episodes of Yellowjackets Season 3 premiere Fridays on Showtime.

Yellowjackets

The Man With No Eyes finally gets more screentime and the wilderness timeline adopts a Lynchian approach in Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 3.

Release Date

November 14, 2021

Network

Showtime, Paramount+ with Showtime

Showrunner

Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson, Jonathan Lisco

Directors

Benjamin Semanoff, Daisy von Scherler Mayer, Deepa Mehta, Eduardo Sánchez, Jeffrey W. Byrd, Liz Garbus, Scott Winant, Eva Sørhaug, Jamie Travis

Pros & Cons

We’re finally learning more about The Man With No Eyes.
A Jackie appearance!
Van is in remission?
Coach Scott is at the Yellowjackets’ mercy.